Posted 3 years ago on April 17, 2013, 11:10 p.m. EST by elf3
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End corporate personhood that gives corporations separate standing under the law give these families justice and let's put terrorists in jail; potentially 14000 exposed...14000

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The company that produced contaminated medications linked to an unprecedented fungal meningitis outbreak faced mounting scrutiny on Saturday over whether it illegally sold drugs to medical facilities, as the death toll from the disease grew to 15.

by GREG MCCUNE | OCT. 13, 2012

1 of 4. A security guard looks out from the front doors of pharmaceutical compounding company New England Compounding Center (NECC), a producer of the ﬆeroid methylprednisolone acetate, in Framingham, Massachusetts October 8, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi

By Greg McCune

CHICAGO | Sat Oct 13, 2012 6:58pm EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The company that produced contaminated medications linked to an unprecedented fungal meningitis outbreak faced mounting scrutiny on Saturday over whether it illegally sold drugs to medical facilities, as the death toll from the disease grew to 15.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said another person died from meningitis, the second death in Indiana. The number of cases of the disease reported reached 201 in 14 ﬆates, according to the CDC and ﬆate oﬃcials.

Illinois reported its ﬁrﬆ case of meningitis from a ﬆeroid injection and New Hampshire oﬃcials reported that ﬆate's ﬁrﬆ four conﬁrmed cases from the outbreak, which showed no signs of abating.

Tennessee is the worﬆ aﬀected ﬆate with six deaths and 52 cases followed by Michigan with three deaths and 41 cases, including one case of an infection that has not been conﬁrmed as meningitis.

As federal and ﬆate authorities scrambled to contain the outbreak, inveﬆigators were trying to determine how the medication produced by New England Compounding Center was contaminated and whether its sprawling drug supply business complied with licensing laws.

A series of emails between the company and a clinic in Mississippi reviewed by Reuters show that NECC sold drugs without requiring physicians to supply individual patient prescriptions. The cuﬆomer conﬁrmed that NECC supplied the clinic with drugs without patient names or prescriptions, which are required by a number of ﬆates including Massachusetts, where the company is based.

The emails also indicate that NECC referred business to a siﬆer company, Ameridose LLC, despite a ﬆatement by Ameridose earlier this week that the two operated separately.

NECC has recalled the suspect product, surrendered its license to operate in Massachusetts and suspended operations. Ameridose also has temporarily suspended operations.

"NECC's intent has always been to operate in compliance with our licenses in the ﬆates where we do business," the company said in a ﬆatement.

FEDERAL CRITICISM

The U.S. Food and Drug Adminiﬆration is inveﬆigating NECC and there have been calls from some in Congress for a criminal inveﬆigation of the company.

"FDA considers this to be one of our top priorities and we are dedicating many resources to this inveﬆigation," the agency said in a ﬆatement late on Friday.

Federal regulators have come under criticism for failing to prevent the outbreak by closely regulating drug compounding companies such as NECC, which prepare medications for clinics and doctors largely outside federal oversight. The FDA has said the law does not give it adequate authority to do so, leaving regulation largely to the ﬆates.

"This outbreak began at a compounding pharmacy and the Food and Drug Adminiﬆration has very limited authority over what these facilities produce," said a spokesman for the Health and Human Services Department in Washington. "We urge Congress to give FDA the authority it needs to ensure these kinds of outbreaks do not happen again."

NECC faces mounting threats from ﬆates as well. Several ﬆates are inveﬆigating the company and at leaﬆ two - Michigan and Massachusetts - have said the company violated their regulations, according to a Reuters survey.

Some 14,000 patients received the suspect ﬆeroid medications, which were shipped to 76 facilities in 23 ﬆates as long ago as May.

Meningitis is an infection of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms include headache, fever and nausea. Fungal meningitis is a rare form and is not contagious.

Cases of meningitis have been reported in Tennessee, Michigan, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and New Hampshire.

If the government regulators see corporate shenanigans through dollar-sign eyeglasses, it is just fine because it is a common business practice called 'profit sharing'.

If the people do the same, it is taken as terrorism due to the non-monetary motive. The pursuit of the mighty dollar is the business of America, including and especially our government. Monetary pursuit sanctifies miscreants.

Our corporations and governments run insurance operations that 'guarantee' safe and sound outcomes and yet when 'talked-away' disasters strike, they chalk them up to 'acts of God' and 'nobody could have foreseen that'. Yes, they were the 'nobodies' and they got God mighty angry for shifting the blame.